Toph Effect
by PeliikGrahSol
Summary: Toph finds herself abruptly misplaced into the mass effect universe. Stuck with nothing but her earthbending how will she fair?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

* * *

 _Where am I_? Was her first thought when she woke. Her mind was feeling like sand, fuzzy… blurry. Weirder still was the cold metal she felt against her back. She brushed her knuckles against the ground. It didn't feel like iron… it didn't feel like any metal she had ever felt before. Actually worried now, she rolled onto all fours, slamming a palm against the metal.

Ignoring the sense of vertigo she could feel more. She could feel the boundaries of the room; the metal under her fingers was thin, barely even half the size of her pinkie. The surface was far smoother than she had ever felt too. But she could barely see further than an arm's length away without it getting blurry. Beneath her was empty space; she could only feel ropes of weird stuff lying in rows beneath the floor, she wasn't sure but she thought there was another sheath of metal bellow that.

 _Why can't I see properly_ , and _why does it feel like someone banged a boulder over my head?_

Toph put her feet beneath her, bracing herself for the wave of nausea she would feel, and stood up.

"Where am I?" she asked herself, burrowed her toes into the floor. _Iron_? It was iron. She could feel that now, but it was hard to bend, very hard to bend, she could almost not feel any impurities within it. Whoever made it must have been a master smith without equal. More worrying was why she was inside a room made of near unbendable metal?

She tapped her foot, worried when she couldn't get a good feel of the room again. She must have hit her head harder than she first thought as her touch must have been affected to some degree. But at least she could feel some oddity on the far wall. So that was where she was headed.

The closer she got the more curious she became over the oddity she could feel the image take shape sharper and sharper for every movement closer to it. Until she stood close enough to touch it. What she felt was out of this world, she did not even know what she was sensing, no doubt it was mechanical, but there was so many parts, most of it so foreign she couldn't even guess what it did, or what it was for.

Then out of nowhere she felt footsteps beyond the weird wall.

 _A door_? Must be. If it was a door it had to have a gap she could force open. It was hard but she thought she found what she was looking for.

She massaged her hands and took a deep breath, this iron was tough stuff, and she knew she'd need more power than she was used to.

Releasing her breath, centred herself, and aligned her hands to the door crack. Then with a mighty punch she rent the tips of her finger into the door with a resounding clang of metal. Feeling mighty annoyed that she barely got her fingers deep enough to the first joints, the metal gave way more when she threw another spear-handed punch, widening and deepening the wedge further. She could hear a startled squawk come from the other side.

She widened the hole further with a series of palm strikes. She heard some more startled shouts and calls through the brief contacts she had with the door. It was to muffled and unclear for her to understand a word.

Memories from when she discovered metal bending resurfaced in her mind. Her current situation wasn't so different after all… except this time her prison was larger. _More room to move!_ She couldn't help the grin that spread over her face when she drew back. Her legs spread out, her centre brought down low into a solid horse-stance. Then with the might of a rockslide, sprang at the door. Her elbow hit with such power that the metal screeched as it bent to her will and muscle. She could hear something crack as something broke within the metal frame, something she did not even reflect over has she felt the hole she'd dug, she'd gone through. The hole was nothing but a crack, barely enough to force her fingers through.

She heard a panicked cry, now when she didn't have a full hand's breadth of metal between herself and whoever was keeping her locked up. She still did not understand a single word, the words so foreign it could have as well been "bla bla".

The cry must have meant something though as she could hear armoured footsteps come rushing towards her. A handful of weird noises and beeps followed almost immediately.

Wasting no more time, she took three quick steps backwards, skipping on her last, only her toes remained in contact for a brief second to the floor before she dug them in with all her weight. And then charged; she took two quick strides before she dived for the hole! The force of her head along leap, together with plenty of bending, she managed to rip the hole wide open, caving out the door even more.

For one brief moment she felt a spike of fear, she had not thought about checking what was on the other side at all, she did not even know if there was any floor to land on, or worse, land on something that would hurt. A fear that passed the moment her arm met the ground, metal too! She let her momentum carry her into a short roll, and slammed one of her feet into the floor, stopping her with one powerful shock. It was like the war all over again on one of those Fire nation zeppelins. The metal was still as hard and unyielding as the door had been and the contact jarred her bones more than she was comfortable with, it had almost hurt!

There was three, no four people standing around her, she could feel them, three in front, one to her back, though two of them felt really weird. But the guns she felt in their hands put that curiosity far back in her mind. She could think about that stuff later, she had more pressing things to worry about. Like those gun wielding and armoured thugs!

There was no earth to grab hold of, and the metal was way too unwieldy for her to use. So a good ol' beating was in order!

Not even a second had passed since Toph had made it out of that room, and she was on the move. The closest thug, nothing but a skinny twig of a man standing a smidge to far from his comrades, grunted in pain when her iron tight grip crushed his wrist, and she swore he whimpered when her left shin met his sides. Bending the man double around her leg.

Not even a split second later she was on the move to the next guy, the one that felt the most weird of them all, she could swear his legs was bending in all the wrong places but he still stood straight like it was nothing. She actually had to commend this one for at least that gun in his hands was already aiming towards her, unlike the two other who was barely now jumping to action.

She would have worried about getting shot if she hadn't been a bender… which of course she was!

Her arms made the bare motion, throwing her arms up in front of her as if she was calling a big pillar of earth towards the sky, latching onto the feel of the impurities within the gun, the thug did not stand a chance to her push as his aim flew straight towards the ceiling. The gun fired, probably from the thug squeezing the trigger in his surprise. The weird and rapid spurt sound the gun made almost brought her to a halt, dozens of metallic grains flew out of the muzzle, chipping much greater chunks out of the ceiling. _What kind of gun is that!?_

She did not like all this weirdness, and that was her final straw. Guns was a new clumsy invention that made big barking sounds and terrifying damage to whatever person it hit, but this shot grains, only grains! With such speed and power she'd be hard pressed to even do with big chunks of metal!

She ducked in under the thugs arms and delivered a haymaker of all haymakers aimed at the liver. The hard oddly earthy armour crunched and bent under her fist and sank deep into the thugs side. And this contact gave her a full view of just what she had punched. Her earth sense showed her the freakiest thing she'd ever felt! She could feel the thing's skin littered with hard plates of bone. The bone structure was so human but so different that everything felt wrong, bones that bent in ways it shouldn't muscles that moved and was attached so oddly it made her queasy. She could barely recognize lungs and the innards, the heart beat so offset… it made her sick, deep into her stomach.

The yarbel that came out when the thing exclaimed in obvious pain, was as weird as the thing itself as she picked up the thing make two sounds at the same time.

Worse still was how little her punch seemed to have done as she felt the things right leg tense to kick her.

"Get away!" she couldn't help the worst horrifyingly girly tone she let out of her mouth, as she took hold on everything her bending could grip and pushed the creature away from her.

The thing only gave a surprised squawk as it lifted from the floor as if slammed by a freight train, and got embedded in the far wall.

Breathing heavily, Toph was made aware of the other two… three if she counted the groaning mess of the first thug, by the other weird ones barking growl. Was it another weird creature too? It felt far more normal, but its feet did not feel like normal feet should have on a human. Armoured or not.

She launched herself down at the things feet, diving under its aim, and pivoted in place, performing a leg sweep. The thing did not stand a chance as her unyielding, rock hard shins crushed the things lower leg armour, and fractured the fragile bones beneath.

 _Man these people are weak_! Whoever, or whatever they were, she almost felt bad for the weaklings, only almost. What had they expected from trapping an earthbender?

The thing fell down hard with a pained scream, one she silenced when she dropped the heel down over the side of its head in an axe kick.

The last thug was too far away from her, she couldn't reach him without being shot with one of those weird guns. The only things she could use to protect herself were the thugs themselves. So she did the only thing she could do and bent the unconscious thug up in front of her. And got her second shock when she felt the grains simply bounce on thin air in front of her living shield. The gunfire ceased almost immediately when the remaining thug realized it wasn't her he was shooting at. She took hold of her 'shield' and charged forward.

The thug exclaimed in another foreign language before jumping out of her way.

"Oh, no you don't!"

She dropped her 'shield' and threw herself at the thug in a tackle. The remaining man went down with a squeak. She ripped the gun out of his hands and bent it around his arms into a crude but functional handcuff.

The thug struggled under her, making a huge ruckus, shouting in that nonsensical language of his.

"Eh, shut your trap." She said and punched him, hard in the head. The thug went slack beneath her, knocked unconscious. "Wuss."

She rose back to her feet, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She felt heat crawl up the back of her neck and ears as she remade the fight in her head. The memory of her screaming like one of those pathetic city born snobs, screaming for help just because of the sight of a spider or squirrel-rat. But that, thing, had taken her by surprise.

Worried that she had overdone it, and more than a little curious about just what she had sent flying. She stepped closer.

The thing crowed weakly as she came close. It really did make weird sounds.

"Shut up, will yah?" She spoke to it. The thing went silent as if it had understood her. "You understand me?"

She got another crow, different pitch to its word.

"Well I don't understand squat of what you are saying." She guessed it did as it answered her question.

She brushed her knuckles over its barrel like chest, getting a better feel of the thing's body.

"Never met something like you before," she rapped her knuckles against it, drawing a few painful wheezes out of its lungs. "Your buddies can get you out when they wake up, see yah."

She couldn't stay much longer, she had to find her way out of this place. After all She had a whole academy waiting on her, metalbending didn't teach itself after all. Stomping her foot she felt out which way to go, which was down the hall to her right, left of her ill-prepared cell. The other way only ended in a dead end.

* * *

 **A/N:** An old story I tinkered on way back. Found myself writing on it again and felt it was starting to deserve getting published. Please tell me what you think of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One:**

* * *

Omega, a cesspool of criminals, pirates, mercenaries and the desperate few. In one quiet corner of the station, an old warehouse complex was in the midst of chaos. The home of the Blue Suns was being destroyed from the inside, by one irate young girl. One that had been brought in just hours earlier.

Harkam was going to kill the son of a bitch who took that monster into their base.

"Open fire!"

Harkam did not know who screamed the command, but cursed when his entire squad rose out of their covers to lay fire down the corridor. Damn fucking undisciplined idiots. He was going to lynch each and every one of them for undermining his authority.

He rose up only to see the thrice damned demon tuck and roll, taking with her the very floor in a horrible sound of screeching metal. He did not know how such a thing was possible, but the human girl bent the metal as if it was mere foil, in ways that by no reason should have been possible.

Now encased in the crude makeshift armour she had made for herself she came running at them. Sparks flying off her form as his five-man squad tried in vain to bring the monster down.

In a flash she was on top the far barricades, tearing the metal barrier to pieces as she simply ran through it, rocketing the scraps in every which way in the most absurd display of biotics he had ever seen. Chunks of the barricade was levitated, punched and kicked into his subordinates. He even heard the poor sod who actually got punched go down with a sickening crack. His radio only picking up a brief sob as he laid still.

The girl was tearing through his squad like a Krogan on steroids. But he knew one trick that not even the Krogan could survive.

Gritting his teeth he grabbed a grenade, and prepared his rifle for a concussive shot. Wincing when he heard another of his mercenaries go down, this one got his ankle twisted when the very floor wrangled and ate up the poor man's foot. Twisting it in a very bad angle and forcing him down.

"Grenade!" he shouted out and threw the bomb at the metal form of the girl. And quickly brought his rifle up and shot his prepared concussive charge. It stopped the girl in her tracks, but instead of throwing her to the ground or even off balance, the girl had attempted to dodge and taken the shot over her shoulder. But it was enough to keep her in place for the grenade to sail through the air and stick onto the metal armour.

 _Bye bye, human._ He smiled as he and his entire squad scrambled back into cover.

A mighty crash and hulk of mangled metal crashed into his view. He only managed to catch a glimpse of his lieutenant horrified face when he realized just what this meant.

 _Fucking who-_! His thoughts were cut short when the metal chunk exploded. He was bodily thrown into the wall behind him, his entire side erupted in pain and he lost sight in one of his eyes, his visor a spider web of cracks and broken glass.

* * *

Toph stood frozen in place. Her arms shook, extended from her panicked throw, and her heart raced thirty miles a second. That had been closer than she was comfortable with.

She had been confused at first when the weird four eyed things shouted something alien and threw that little palm sized disk at her. Only when it and its comrade had thrown themselves behind cover did she understand just what that thing was.

A bomb.

And what a bomb it had been. She felt just as much as she heard what damage it caused, she had been lucky enough to catch the fist sized fragment, of what had been her metal-bent armour as the explosion shattered it into dozens of small pieces, in the air. She carefully moved her feet, feeling for her surroundings.

Nothing.

She stomped, bringing her down low into a wide horse-stance, this time getting a better, if fuzzy, picture of the hall. It was a whole mess. She felt all the chaos she had wrought on the building, the deep gauges of her armament, the gnarly ditch she had wrought. The twisted and broken ankle of the only human in the hall, the caved in chest plates of the bony ones. The ripped up state of the two four-eyed creatures when the bomb went off. Only three of the five attackers was breathing.

Feeling a bit queasy at the revelation, she stepped past the carnage. The still alive but badly injured four… no now three-eyed one shifted a little as she passed, its head following her. She would have felt bad about it if it had not tried to actually kill her with that bomb in the first place.

Reaching another door, this one leading out… she hoped, she was taken aback when it swished open on its own.

"What in the…" she cautiously slid closer, her feet never leaving the ground ready for anything. Her caution was quickly changed to curiosity as she felt how the door had folded into itself to part way for her. She could feel the pieces and she see it before her how they all fit together to form the door, tough many of the smaller pieces and gears went well over and past her head. She could just not fathom how something so intricate could work so flawlessly.

She shrugged her awe off her shoulders and continued on trough the doorway, it was yet another notch in new and weird experiences she had that day.

* * *

 _What is this place_? Toph thought as she felt the world around her. The maze of metal corridors went on endlessly in all directions. She could feel many hundreds of thousands of people and things all around her. Above her, bellow her to her left and right, everywhere were people, things and stuff she could scarcely imagine in her head. Not only that the odd purified metal beneath her feet just made the task of 'looking' hard.

Her prison was well behind her now as she made her way down the larger hallway, she could feel the dirt and grime on the floor, the trash and paper scattered everywhere. It was actually impressive as even the layer of dirt had layers of dirt, it was refreshing if she had to be honest as it gave the floor a more homely feel to her. The air carried a rancid odour of fresh piss and oil as well of being very dry and stale. Dust hanged thickly in the air. Wherever she was the place really needed to open a few windows to freshen the place up.

More of the weird creatures infested the place, the few humans she could pick out was clearly outnumbered. She kneaded her soles against the cold floor knitting her face in concentration as she tried to expand her range.

Nothing, her sight were still limited and she could not see further than a few hundred meters in any directions. The whole place was so hollow it made it hard to visualise. If she had to describe it all in one word she would say chaos, it felt like chaos.

She wandered aimlessly, hoping to find her way out of whatever this place was.

It did not take long when she heard something that brought her to a stop. It was… was; _growling_? It was a quiet guttural growl not just from one but many things. Her sensitive ears and touch managed to pick up the near silent scrapes of clawed feet.

"Come out now, I know you are there," she said to the ambush she was more than sure was coming.

The response she got was less than promising for all she got was wet hisses and growls. Answering her challenge something stalked out of their alley. Her muscles tensed as she prepared herself for any sudden moves. On each foot, thin and padded like a dog's, two thick claws protruded and feebly tried to dig groves into the floor. _How many weird things are there in this place?_ What more was hiding in the dark?

It was thin but the way it moved bellied a developed physique. The way it twitched and moved and growled it felt… feral. Like a rabid animal.

She turned up to face it, making a show of looking at it, keeping her ears open and alert. She searched for something to bend, something easier than the metal beneath her. She found nothing but a thin layer of sandy dust.

It growled spitting out unintelligible words that sounded warped and too throaty to be its real language. It gesticulated wildly, its body tense and its heart beating in powerful fast strokes. It was angry, afraid? How it moved was erratic and trying to be imposing. It brought back memories of Earth Rumble, half of the fun was the posturing and the crowd pleasing. And this… thing reminded her of that. Was it trying to impress on its peers or her? She did not know and it made her cautious.

She took a tentative step away from it, readying her fists for any sudden moves. She did her best to sense and see if she could feel for any guns.

Alarmingly she found more than a few. At least that was what she assumed from the blocky shapes she picked up through her senses. Made from the same earth clean metal that surrounded her.

She gritted her teeth. What was wrong with this damn place?! She swore, for what felt like the thousandth time since waking up in that room.

She was tired of it all!

"Fuck off," she spit at the thing's feet and walked off. She did not care anymore. She would beat them up as surely as she had beaten up the others. Annoying weaklings all of them, not a solid bone in any of them!

Unsurprising the thing took offense to her action and roared its challenge and drew its gun. She had been prepared for it and twisted around and jabbed her fingers through the seam between the floor sheets. And with a mighty heave wrenched it up between herself and the alien.

She heard three barks, but only two impacts on her makeshift shield. A jolt of surprise shot through her when she felt the vibrations of the alien collapsing on the floor. The rest of its pack yelped and screeched a hasty retreat back into their alley and soon disappeared beyond her senses.

"Jarhalt?!" someone shouted above her. It was that odd yarbel she likened to that of a weird bony alien. Where was it? She could not feel the alien, nor could she sense where ever it stood. Not to mention what it said.

"What?" she asked dumbly. She got a crowed response from the thing, but it was no more intelligible than any other time. It repeated the word 'jarhalt' though, whatever that meant. But it did seem friendlier than the other bunch. "Yeah, I don't understand you at all."

She heard the thing sigh, and how its feet clamped against the metal flooring of what she assumed to be some kind of gangway. The place was somewhat similar to how the fire nation liked to build their machines, so she could easily imagine it. It at least made more sense than nothing else.

"Suit yourself," Toph shrugged and continued walking. She did not know where she was going, but she figured that sooner or later after a few trials and errors, and a bit of luck, she would find herself the way out of this complex. It couldn't be that hard now could it? Eventually she'd run out of building to wander through and find herself the way out. At least that was what she hoped.

She did not get far when she heard a familiar set of feet coming closer. Tensing up she stopped and listened for the alien. What did it want now?

It quickly came into the 'sight' of her earth sense. It was tall, and gangly. Why were there so many of these… things around all of a sudden. Toph had never heard of creatures such as them before.

"What do you want now?" She asked feeling how the thing petered to a stop just a couple of steps from her. Toph turned her head to hear better. Maybe if she listened hard enough she might come to understand what it said?

It spoke with this double tone. But while it did gesticulate and flick at its arm it remained as unintelligible as ever.

She was ready to just ignore the thing and continue on her way, when another voice of a woman spoke from the things arm;

"How a human gets on Omega without a translator is beyond me. But you really need to be more careful," the arm lady said. Toph took note how the alien spoke, and then the lady voice started to speak.

Toph now intrigued turned fully towards the thing, cocking her head curiously. What kind of spirit bullshit was going on now? She could only assume it had something to do with spirits. Aang always heard voices or saw things that no one else could. Being able to talk with his past selves and such. Though having a voice coming out of a person's arm was however new to her. She had never heard of it before.

"So you speak for this guy?" She asked the arm lady. She was unsure how it worked, was she supposed to address the spirit or the thing it spoke for? She got her answer almost immediately.

"It is not a VI," the thing sighed. So… not to the spirit it was. "Are you lost?"

Toph scowled.

"And who's asking?" She ignored the question asking instead her own.

"Captain Preitor Gavorn." The thing asked and made a show of looking her up and down. "It is a bad idea to wander around unarmed around here, the alleys are infested with Vorcha, especially for a small human girl."

Toph grit her teeth. Why was it that where ever she went everyone just assumed she could not take care of herself. The thing would fare as well as those that had imprisoned her. That is badly against her.

"I am a bender and can take care of myself, mr. Nosy."

"Yes, tell that to the pests as they rip you open. Follow me, I will lead you to a safer district," the thing waved her to follow and started to walk briskly. "I can't have you dying while I am tasked of cleaning the place of Vorcha, I have a reputation to uphold."

Scowling now, Toph followed the taller alien. It grated on her how quick and easy the thing dismissed her. But she settled on being led. For maybe it would lead her out of the building and onto proper earth. Then she would not need to be lead around like a helpless blind girl.

* * *

 **A/N:** Here you have chapter two.

To answer some of the questions posed in the reviews:

Toph is about 14-15 so about 2-3 years from the show. She's been running her metal-bending school for a bit.

This chapter was pretty much already written when I posted this story, I wrote about 1600 words since I posted. That should give you a rough estimate how quick I write. But if you take a look at my profile you will see I have more than one or two stories which I juggle on a when I feel like writing basis. I post every few months on one or two of my stories.

And I answered where she is at the top of this chapter...

that should cover all the questions.

So please tell me what you think of this chapter or the story as a whole, if you have questions please feel free to pose them, I usually answer any PM or review.


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